The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence eBook

[Footnote 25: It may be recalled that a similar
disposition was made by the Confederates at Mobile
against Farragut’s attack in 1864, and that
it was from these small vessels that his flagship Hartford
underwent her severest loss. To sailing ships
the odds were greater, as injury to spars might involve
stoppage. Moreover, Howe’s arrangements
brought into such fire all his heavier ships.]

[Footnote 26: A letter to the Admiralty, dated
October 8th, 1779, from Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot,
then commander-in-chief at New York, states that “at
spring tides there is generally thirty feet of water
on the bar at high water.”]

[Footnote 27: These four ships were among the
smallest of the fleet, being one 74, two 64’s,
and a 50. D’Estaing very properly reserved
his heaviest ships to force the main channel.]

[Footnote 29: I have not been able to find an
exact statement of the number; Beatson gives eight
regiments, with a reinforcement of five battalions.]

[Footnote 30: It may be interesting to recall
that this was the ship on the books of which Nelson’s
name was first borne in the navy, in 1771.]

[Footnote 31: Troude attributes d’Estaing’s
sortie to a sense of the insecurity of his position;
Lapeyrouse Bonfils, to a desire for contest.
Chevalier dwells upon the exposure of the situation.]

[Footnote 32: For the respective force of the
two fleets see pp. 66, 67, 71.]

[Footnote 33: This account of the manoeuvres
of the two fleets is based upon Lord Howe’s
dispatch, and amplified from the journal of Captain
Henry Duncan of the flagship Eagle which has
been published (1902) since the first publication
of this work. See “Navy Records Society,
Naval Miscellany.” Vol. i, p. 161.]

[Footnote 34: At the mouth of Delaware Bay.]

[Footnote 35: Ante, p. 62.]

[Footnote 36: Chevalier: “Marine Francaise,”
1778.]

[Footnote 37: Later Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker,
Bart., who perished in the Cato in 1783.
He was father of that Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, who
in 1801 was Nelson’s commander-in-chief at Copenhagen,
and who in 1778 commanded the Phoenix, 44,
in Howe’s fleet. (Ante, pp. 39, 46.)]

CHAPTER V

THE NAVAL WAR IN EUROPE. THE BATTLE OF USHANT

1778

During the same two months that saw the contest between
d’Estaing and Howe in America the only encounter
between nearly equal fleets in 1778 took place in
European waters. Admiral Keppel, having returned
to Spithead after the affair between the Belle Poule
and the Arethusa,[38] again put to sea on the
9th of July, with a force increased to thirty ships
of the line. He had been mortified by the necessity
of avoiding action, and of even retiring into port,
with the inadequate numbers before under his command,
and his mind was fixed now to compel an engagement,
if he met the French.